


The Last Outpost of Life

by laissemoidanser



Category: True Detective
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Imagination, M/M, Parallel Universes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 10:04:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4015630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laissemoidanser/pseuds/laissemoidanser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“So many worlds out there, Marty, they extend so much farther than this one. I could go anywhere. Discover all the sacramental truths of the universe…but once you start this journey, there’s no coming back. You can go so far…where there’s nothing left but fear and darkness…And when the boundaries between the worlds are so thin, sometimes…it’s so easy to slip into this darkness…”</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Outpost of Life

**Author's Note:**

> The idea of this fic was inspired mostly by Stephen King's book "Lisey's Story" and later combined together with other elements such as the whole post-apocalyptic scenery.

***

A poisonous rusty sun comes out from the clouds and drops its merciless rays onto the scorched wasteland that witnessed way too many civilizations to give birth to a new life. Every day in this land is like torture but life still refuses to lay its armor down and give up, still dwells in ancient cities half ruined with time and weather. Some of them were enlarged and merged to form the last outposts of humanity.  A story of Martin Hart begins in one of them.

 ‘’That enough?’’

 ‘’Come on, don’t be such a shit, Hart. You ain’t gonna need no money where you’re headin’ anyway.’’

Marty shoves another thirty dollars into the warden’s hand.

‘’You gonna rob me blind, Steve, before I even have a chance to give something to my wife and kids”.

 ‘’Your ex-wife. It always bugs me why you even give a damn anymore, going all the way out there. She left you, man, just accept it. See, I care about you…”

 ‘’Better shut up and open the gates. I’ll be gone just couple of days.’’

Steve shrugs his shoulders, lips stretched in a lopsided smile full of crooked teeth.  He presses the button. With an ugly creak the huge iron gates rise and Marty steps out of the city. Dust settles on his boots and his jacket.

 ‘’Hey, Hart!”

“What?”

 “You forgot your hat,” Steve throws him the hat and waves at him as the gate slowly closes back down, hinges screaming into the endless sands.

Marty puts his hat on, squints at the rising sun and takes a well-remembered path to a small abandoned village while whistling his favorite song. Marty has a little secret, a place where he keeps a car. Part by part he put that black truck together all by himself and he’s very proud of it, just the way he’s proud of all the guns he’s keeping in it.

Arms are illegal everywhere these days and cars are such a valuable priority that as a rule they are confiscated by the government, taken apart and then sold. Marty is one of the few who managed to keep his car and hide it away. 

While Steve is on watch Marty knows he has a chance to sneak out of the city for a week or two. Steve would never tell on him if he pays him generously.

The truck doesn’t start at once, it’s been useless for too long and suffered from frequent sand storms. Last time Marty parked it in a barn but still too much dust gathered under the hood.

 “Come on, baby,” he says, willing it to start, turns the keys once more and at last the engine comes to life. He smiles, wipes the sweat away from his forehead, puts his cowboy hat on again and drives out to the main road.

He travels day and night, between desert hills, abandoned settlements, sandy mountains and thickets of withered bush. He drives under the night sky full of stars, past faded road signs that have no purpose any more, past several rusty traffic lights staring at him with their empty eye sockets. Marty counts each of them, remembering that there are only seven left till he reaches the southern border.

The desert ends and he makes a stop by a tiny lake, fills his bottle with water, takes his clothes off and steps into the long-awaited coolness. He sleeps for several hours in the car, eats dry pasta and canned beans for breakfast, hits the road again.  

Somewhere between the third and the fourth traffic light he spots a man sitting on the edge of the road, a young man. Marty slows the car down; his first reflex is to reach for the 38 gun on the passenger seat.

Loners can be most dangerous thing these days and at first Marty makes up his mind to shoot him on sight, just in case. Who knows maybe he’s got something of a value in his bag, a gun or, even better, car parts?

He puts in the first speed to look him over.  The stranger follows his car with tired dark eyes. Then Marty notices blood on his right arm. He frowns, considering to just let the man be and drive past him but something makes him stop the car, a premonition…  He doesn’t shut the engine down, puts his finger on the trigger of his 38 and gets out.

The man doesn’t get up from where he’s sitting on the edge of the road on the ground, doesn’t even stir. His shirt is dark with sweat and his right arm is covered in blood up to his elbow, dripping thickly on the hot asphalt destroyed by time.

His wind tousled hair is the color of light brown, one unruly curl flopping over his forehead. He watches Marty closely, squinting a little.

 “Hey man… what are you doing here all by yourself?” Marty approaches him slowly, ready to fire at any moment.

 “The hell do you care?” the stranger snaps back at him drawling out each word as if he hadn’t spoken for a century and words are sandy on his tongue. His accent is a little different from the one people tend to use around this land and Marty should’ve ended him right from the start. But Marty hesitates.

 “What happened to your hand? You got shot?”

 “No,” the stranger stretches out his wounded arm, palm up, and Marty sees glass shards sticking out of his skin.

He looks around nervously, watching for a clue to all this. Watching for some kind of a trap he might’ve gotten into, maybe a gang of local thugs is about to come at him and steal his car? Leave him dying in a ditch? He shouldn’t have stopped in the first place, this guy is not right in the head and he’s hopeless with that kind of wound. Marty has no way of helping him…

 “That’s a bad fucking wound you’ve got there. If you don’t do anything about it, gonna lose your arm”.

A nod is all he gets in response and the crazy son of a bitch just takes one shard between his fingers and pulls it out with a groan of pain. Martywinces, lowershisgun. 

 “Listen, stop it. That’s not the way to do it, I’ve got a first aid kit in my car…”

 “It’s alright. I don’t need no kit.”

 “How the hell did this happen?”

The man only shrugs and tells a plain lie.

 “Had bad luck straying over the fence …I guess”.

“Jesus…. “

“I’d had worse, don’t waste your time on me, man, really, just get on going”.

Marty is lost between a strong urge to get back in the car and leave and a heartfelt pity for this poor guy who is doomed without a help.

 “Where are you heading anyway?”

“South.”

 “South. Well, me too.”

There is a brief pause.

 “Listen. You need a ride?” Marty speaks before he even considers his words. “You won’t even last a night in such…in such state. A man without a car in place like this, nothing but a walking bait”.

 “Fine,” a stranger simply agrees. He gets up on his feet slowly and takes another shard, the last one, out of his arm.

Marty still holds his finger on the trigger but something tells him this guy is no threat to him. 

 “What’s your name?” he asks in the car, while bandaging his wound.

“Rust.”

The wound is ugly and must be hell of a pain when bandage comes in contact with it. But Rust doesn’t show it, only turns very pale and frowns a little. Marty spots a bird tattoo on his arm when he cleans it from all the dry blood.

“That’s alright Rust. You’re taking it like a champ. I’m Marty, by the way.”

They’re on the road again and after the fifth traffic light Marty steals a glance at Rust and is surprised to see that he looks much better. He’s about to ask him a question but Rust asks first,

 “What you looking for out there?”

 “You mean in the south? Well…my family lives there, my ex-wife. Wanted to see her.”

Rust lets out a sudden strangled sigh, settles back in the passenger seat and turns his head to Marty.

 “When was the last time you were there?”

 “Two years ago…maybe two and a half… why? You ever been there?”

 “Yeah, three months ago. There’s nobody left”.

Marty tilts his head a little, sweat springs on his temples, rolling down from under his hat, his heart shrinking.

“How do you mean?”

 “They say, the defense was too weak and one night them creatures broke through the gates. Not a single soul survived. Maybe someone with a car could escape, but…”

 “What are you saying to me??”

Marty slams the breaks and stares at Rust in horror. “The defense was too weak? How’s that??”

 “Sorry, man, but I’m not making this up”.

 “But my family’s there. My wife and kids!!”

“I’m sorry…”

Marty opens the door and gets out, takes three deep breaths of dusty air and sits down in the shade of the truck, taking his hat off and hiding his face in his hands.

Five minutes later he’s back in his seat again, turns the keys with determination and slams the door closed.

 “Are you fucking lying to me you asshole?”

 “Why would I lie to you?” Rust wonders.

 “How do I know why, but you do!”

They’re gaining speed quickly. Marty’s eyes are shining feverishly.

 “What the fuck do you need in the south then, ha?”

 “I’m searching something.”

“ ’Something’ he says.”

 “One thing that is very important to me, okay? I swear, you fool, there’s not a soul in the city.”

 “Fuck you! If you don’t shut up, I’ll throw your ass back on the road, you get this? And if it turns out you lied I’ll shoot you. I’ll fucking shoot you, you hear me?”

Rust doesn’t say one more word.

They’re closing in on the city by the early evening and even from distance Marty can already see that the gates are wide open. His heart sinks into emptiness, and horrible truth grips him. He stops the car, gets out, tears shining in his blue eyes.

“No…” he clutches his head. “No, this can’t be happening…”

His legs let him down and he leans on the hood of the truck. The sun is going behind the horizon and a fog is thickening over the city. Strange unfamiliar and terrifying sounds are heard from the dark depth of it and Marty realizes that behind the gates there’s really not a soul left. He covers his face with his trembling hand, tears streaming down his cheeks.

 “If I can do anything, man…”

 “Oh shut the fuck up!! You don’t …you don’t understand…!!!”

Several minutes later he finds the strength to ask,

 “When did this happen?”

“Five months ago”.

Marty walks up to the truck, thinks about driving off the cliff in the middle of nowhere, but then he pauses.

 “You said, you were looking for something here?” he asks Rust.

 “That’s correct, yeah”.

 “Can I go with you?”

***

 

They drive into the city all covered in thick grey fog, not a single ray of setting sun breaks in here. Tall empty buildings tower over them, staring at them with shuttered windows and broken doorframes wide agape. Pieces of furniture were thrown out all over the streets, destroyed and torn apart. Lifeless streets are full of all kinds of debris.

From the bag in the backseat of the truck Marty gets two flashlights, two hunting knifes, two guns and two AK-47…

 “Where did you get all of this?” Rust eyes the weapon with pure curiosity, slides his long fingers along the barrel of the gun Marty handed him.

 “Doesn’t matter. I know the place when I see it,” Marty nods towards the street. His breathing vaporizes in the air quickly cooling before the night. “Nothing good gonna come out on this streets anymore”.

He throws the AK over his shoulder.

 “Do you even know how to use this thing?” he asks Rust.

Rust fixes the knife to his belt and says nothing.

They wander the streets without purpose (so Marty thinks) for some time, looking about. Marty anticipates, or rather, awaits for some creature to come at them from around the corner, waits for the opportunity to part with his life because here, in this city, he lost its meaning. Thoughts are so loud in his head he doesn’t register what’s going on around him. However few hours later the reality starts to settle in his mind. 

 “I don’t get it. If the city’s been destroyed… why there ain’t  no bodies here?” he thinks aloud.  His boots crunching over debris and the sound echoes off the bare darkened walls.

 “Because there’s something else in here,” Rust tells him from the opposite side of the street.

Marty steal a look at him, puzzled. He sets his jaw and frowns.

“What?”

“Hope we won’t get the chance to know”.

Fifteen minutes past and Marty is getting impatient.

 “Do you have any route plan or are we gonna drag around this place till it’s too fucking late in the night?”

 “I know the places where I’d already checked. If this can comfort you.”

 “What are we looking for anyway?”

 “The moon is about to come out, we need to find shelter for the night. Are you with me or not? You still can come back if you wanna to.”

They stay in a five-storied house, on the roof-floor, each in his own separate room. Cold moonlight shines through the window like a searchlight and Marty can’t sleep. He listens to the streets coming to life, to the crunching and rustling of debris, to the sound of hundreds of claws scratching the walls, he listens to the creatures unknown communicating with one another as they run about the corners and make strange frightening sounds, similar to high pitched laughter.

 

***

In the morning Rust jumps awake with the loud noise from the kitchen. He grabs his knife and quietly steals down the stairs but sighs with relief when all he discovers is Marty fiddling with a generator.

 “They’ve got coffee here can you imagine…hey, man, what do you hold that fucking knife for?”

Rust walks all the way into the kitchen and sits down at the table, places his knife on the chair next to him.

 “Thought one of them fuckers got in here”.

 “Don’t you know they never show up in the daylight?”

 “I learnt about them just enough to know that some can act unpredictable”.

Marty eyes him suspiciously, puts a kettle on the stove and gets to checking all the shelves, looking for something they could eat. He nods in approval when he opens the broken fridge.

 “We’ve got ourselves food supply for good three days here,” he says and takes out two cans of preserves and (such a treasure) a box of cookies. He puts it all on the table before Rust, suddenly determined to feed this poor skinny bastard as much as he can. Curious, he asks, “How’s your arm?”

 “I’ll live,” Rust stretches out his wounded arm and Marty’s jaw drops, almost literally, to the floor when he sees that the wound has fully healed and there’s nothing left but a tiny scar.

 “Fuck…what is that a fucking miracle….I say you are no expert in fence jumping but you heal pretty good. Just look at that!”

 “My father taught me how to heal,” Rust nods. He takes his knife from the chair and starts cutting the can open.

“Your father? Taught you? I see... Well, you treat yourself to those cookies, can’t promise you’ll get another chance”.

 “I’m sorry, Marty. For what happened to you family.”

Marty only nods and lowers his eyes.

They’re eating in silence broken only once by the pitiful whistling of the kettle. Marty makes hot coffee for both of them and pours it into the cups. For such a long time he hasn’t smelled this precious aroma, and now that it fills his nose he thinks that, maybe, it’s okay to spend few more days in this dying world.

 “Is there a pack of cigarettes?”

Marty looks over his shoulder. Rust nods in the direction of a cigarette pack forgotten long time ago by the old dusty microwave.

 “Yeah, Camels. You smoke?”

 “Fuck yeah. Give this to me.”

Marty scoffs a little and hands him the pack.

 “Today’s your lucky day, buddy,” he jokes, watching as Rust takes one cigarette out and puts the pack carefully in his jeans pocket. From the other pocket he retrieves a lighter, lights the cigarette up and drags on it greedily. An absolutebliss settles on his face, his features relax and smooth out. In a pale grey light of the morning, almost incapable of transferring shiny particles of sunlight to this place, Marty notices, for the first time, that his accidental fellow traveler is actually beautiful. 

It is exactly when his eyes are half-closed and heavy when under the long eyelashes a mysterious blue light of hundreds of worlds sparkles, shines through his weariness and weakness. That’s when Marty starts to feel that he wants to be absorbed by this deep color of blue.  Rust lazily brushes his unruly curl away and sighs – must be such a rare minute of happiness in his life.

 “Tell me about yourself? Where’re you from?” Marty asks him, showing interest.

 “I’m not from around here, was born in Alaska, lived there with my father till I was seventeen. Then I…I had to leave. Worked in Texas for a while, undercover. Was a cop. Until it all started. Since after then, I have no home, live on foot. And… few months ago, I got here. Like I said, I need to find something of mine.”

Marty places a cup of coffee before him and drinks from his own.

 “How did you manage to stay alive all alone? Far as I know, life outside cities such as this one is a promise of death.”

Rust shrugs his shoulders.

 “As you say, I’m lucky. And by the looks of this place, I can say that life _inside_ the cities is not that much safer”.

Rust takes his cup, sees his reflection in it and puts it aside at once.

 “What is it? You don’t want your coffee??”

 “Nah. I drink from my own flask only.”

 “Come on! You could make a fucking exception for once…”

A cup jumps dangerously when Rust slams his fist on the table.

 “I told you I drink only from my own flask”.

Having said that he rises to his feet and leaves. And for the first time Marty realizes that he’s not the only one here carrying a heavy burden under his heart.

 

***

They drive farther into the city until streets become wider and multistoried buildings are replaced with rural area, an open space covered with nothing but dust and scorched grass. The car jumps on a road bump and the glove box opens up, all its contents fall out onto Rust’s lap. He picks them up one by one and puts them back into the box – old magazines, a wrench, a pair of handcuffs …

 “Man! You’ve got music?” he asks turning a CD in his hands.

 “I like to listen to it sometimes, yeah. Whenever I get bored on a long road.”

 “You mind if I put it in?”

 “Go ahead. There’s only one song though. I borrowed this CD from a guy who works with me. Not sure if it still works…”

Rust puts the disk into a slot and turns the volume up. For a while the player produces nothing but a cracking noise but after a prolonged silence a melody breaks through, distant and lyrical. Endless soulless miles stretch around them and it’s empty in the world except for the lyrics of this song that fill Marty’s heart with strange haunting sadness. For a fleeting moment sun breaks through the hazy grey veil of a fog.

 “So they’re singing about a cactus?” Rust arches a brow. Marty throws him a sidelong look and can’t help smiling a little.

 “What? You don’t like it?”

 “No…I do…I do like it plenty actually.”

Rust turns away to the window and Marty secretly casts glances at him, wondering at how weird this guy is, wondering if maybe it was some kind of fate that he happened to meet him on a road like that. Because if he didn’t he’d be dead by now that’s for sure.  And to that same soft delicate tune they reach the central part of the city.

 “Stop here somewhere,” Rust says.

 “Wait a minute. I know this place,” when they get out Marty looks around and he fears to admit that it’s the street where Maggie lives now….where she used to live. Ugly, dark and destroyed like the rest of the city. Part of Marty still hoped that maybe this street remained same light and green and Maggie with the girls would come out on the porch to greet him…but instead he’s greeted by the ruins.

 “Is her house here?” Rust guesses and Marty nods in response.  

 “Well…I’ll be just around the corner. Let’s meet by the car later. If you need time.”

 “Yeah let’s do this. Rust.”

 “We’ve got two more districts to check, I’ll be nearby.”

Marty nods and they go in the opposite directions. He makes his way down the street until he finds the house.

 “Fuck…,” he takes off his hat. “Jesus Christ why me? Why all this happens to me.”

He walks up the porch and steps inside. No evidence of bodies here just like everywhere else. Could they have a chance to escape? Maybe that Ted guy had a car hidden somewhere? Oh how Marty wishes he could visit them more often. All of a sudden he’s overfilled with the realization of his own complete loneliness. He’s left with nothing. He didn’t even understand right until now that his sole existence was built on those rare visits to the south where his girls waited for him. What now…

Marty sits down on the sofa heavily and picks a photo from a heap of broken glass on the floor. Maggie, Macie and Audrey are smiling at him from it. Marty gives way to his sorrow, alone, in the stillness of the day.

By the evening he returns to his car, it’s getting dark already and he’s worrying he took too long. He starts to panic though when there’s no Rust waiting for him at the appointed place.  Marty waits for some time thinking how they need to hurry the hell up, find shelter before it’s too dark. And the son of a bitch is gone.

Ten minutes pass and Marty cocks his 38 and starts in the direction which Rust headed the last time he saw him. Doesn’t walk farther than ten feet away when someone grips him by the shoulder,

“Marty!”

 “Rust?!” Marty gets so scared he nearly pulls the trigger. ‘Where the fuck did you come from?”

 “I’ve been waiting for you by the car but you didn’t show up. So I went looking for you”.

 “How come I didn’t hear you coming at me? It’s like you’ve fallen right from the fucking skies.”

 “What kind of nonsense is that now, Marty?”

 “Forget it. Let’s go we need to get the fuck away from the streets”.

For two more days they roam around the city streets without getting anywhere. They exchange only few words but somehow they are in perfect tune with each other. They don’t need to talk and are perfectly fine with it. Occasionally Marty tries to fish out what they’re looking for but Rust always avoids direct answer. He tells Marty he’s fine on his own and if Marty doesn’t feel like keep going he can always turn around and just leave. Thing is, Marty doesn’t want to.

 

***

 

One of the nights they spend in an abandoned luxury hotel in a suite. Electricity died long time ago and in complete darkness they have to light up some _“exclusive candles for romantic nights in the best hotel of the city._

There’s a working generator in the bathroom though and enough water for both of them to shower. For more than five years Marty didn’t have such privilege. Rust couldn’t even dream of such a thing.

They discover a bottle of good quality whiskey in the mini-bar and share it while listening to the night life disturbing the stillness outside. Marty remembers that Rust doesn’t like to look at his reflection so he makes a quick job of wrapping the bottle in a towel before handing it to him.

As the whiskey disappears Rust’s becoming more talkative and all of sudden Marty’s listening to some deep philosophical shit about the true meaning of all that’s happened to the world. How the humanity deserved this end and how we all must gently embrace the truth of human extinction sinking into the dark once and forever.

Marty waves him away and tells him to shut up but Rust wouldn’t stop. He’s walking circles on the carpet in nothing but his wife beater and his boxer-briefs, sacred cigarette in his mouth, waves an almost empty bottle of whiskey around and talks in vivid emotions.

Marty makes fun out of him, jokingly engages in discourse and he has to admit he hasn’t had such great time sparring in witty words with someone for a long time, didn’t have a chance to meet a talker that smart and deep-read.

“I tell you, Marty, we’ll all become fucking extinct in about a hundred years or so. Because there’s no one out there to look after them nuclear facilities,” Rust hands the bottle to Marty and climbs the huge king size bed where he solemnly concludes,

“We’re doomed.”

“Such bullshit!”

Marty straightens up to his feet from where he’s been seating on the carpet, staggers a little, drinks the rest of the whiskey down and sends the bottle flying somewhere in the farthest corner of the absurdly enormous suite. 

“You know, there’s some good even in this shitty situation Rust.”

“Yeah? And what’s that?” Rust lies down on his stomach, stretches his fine body on the red silk sheets, looks at Marty over the shoulder and Marty suddenly catches himself thinking that he wants to fuck him right into those sheets.

He shakes his head trying to will the intrusive image away from his drunken imagination but Rust looks so damn fine in the candle light.

“When else would you get the chance to live in a fucking suite?”

“Marty. I need to tell you something.”

“What?”

Rust turns around and sits in the bed, pats an empty space beside him inviting Marty to join.

“Do you believe in ghosts Marty?”

“I used to not. But with all this shit happening around…hell, I don’t even know what’s what anymore”.

“I lied to you about the accident with my hand back there,” Rust simply admits when Marty climbs onto the bed next to him. “I did it myself.”

It gets very still for a while. Marty stares at him in disbelief. 

“You tried to kill yourself?” he whispers.

“No. If I’d wanted to kill myself I would’ve tried something more lethal than that. I just needed…needed to give way to some bad blood in me. Yeah.” 

“I don’t get you.”

Rust reaches for a pack of Camels (only three left) resting on the bedside table, takes one out with his mouth, lights it up and falls back into the pillows.

“Maybe you’ll get what I mean in time. I didn’t want to tell you all this shit but if we’re together in this then I’m left with no choice. My father, in Alaska, he taught me the trick when I was little. He told me to cut and let the bad blood out to keep the bad thing inside me in control. He did it to himself all the time and then made me do it. Only when I was seventeen and his “bad thing” took over him I understood the meaning of it all.

“And what is that?”

“He talked to ghosts, my Daddy. Knew the ways to contact them. You know…from the other worlds. I thought he was fucked in the head, until same thing started happening to me too…”

“You father, is he alive?”

“No. He passed”.

A pause. Rust looks at Marty with shining eyes,

“I killed him, Marty. To save myself.”

“Jesus… I…Rust, things you tell me…,” Marty wants to ask him about the ghosts, about what Rust sees in his reflection in the mirror but doesn’t dare. Rust’s still a stranger to him in some sense, all those questions can wait. And, to be honest, he’s scared to ask.

“Don’t know what’s come over me. I’ve never told this to anyone before,” Rust sounds genuinely surprised. “So…I suppose we’ll part ways in the morning? I shouldn’t have brought this up…”

“No it’s okay. We’ve got so far in the city together already and…don’t you think you gonna scare me to death with your stories, man. I’ve got a couple of my own up the sleeve.”

Rust brings the cigarette to his mouth, nods, breathes out.

“Thanks Marty,” he says. “For hearing me out. What’s your story?”

They end up sleeping in the one bed that night.

 

***

At first they plan to spend the next night in the same hotel but things go crosswise when after a long day outside they get back and hear someone in the hall upstairs, or rather, something up there.

They shut the doors at once and hurry back out hoping to find another place to stay before it’s too late. But as soon as they turn around the corner they see the street swarmed with the unwanted guests. It’s dark already and without the safety of four walls and a roof above their heads Rust and Marty are in plain view for the beasts to see and feast upon.

 “This way,” Marty leads Rust away into a tiny guard box by the end of the street. They spend the rest of the evening there, in fear to be discovered any second. The night is getting colder and soon they start clinging closer to each other.

 “Are you cold?” Marty asks in a low voice, feeling Rust shiver by his side.

 “The air is fucking chill…,” is all that Rust mutters back.

Marty scoots closer to him until they’re pressed flush against each other’s side and throws his jacket over his shoulders.

 “You didn’t have to do it,” Rust protests but gathers the jacket around himself nevertheless.

 “Let me be a gentleman for once, alright? Who knows maybe we’re gonna kick the bucket here tonight.”

But soon the creeping noises die down as the swarm of creatures moves in the opposite direction and the moonlight timidly steals along the walls and onto the pavement, outlining demolished walls with tender velvet shadows.

Marty wakes up in a half-sitting position with his neck sore and with the cold absence of Rust by his side. Panic seizes him as he walks out of the box. He looks around, sucks the air in desperately and starts running. He’s passed several blocks before he gathers enough courage to cry out,

“Rust!!”

No answer.

 “What the fuck…,” he swears through greeted teeth. Rust must have left him and went his own way; Marty must have overacted and spooked him away with that stupid jacket thing. And why is he so worried then? He has no right to stop him if he needs to go. Marty would never oblige him to get attached the way he got latched on to him …hell he got so latched on. Marty’s been alone for too long and how come even Rust left him now, how come he’s so unwanted…

“Rust!!!” he calls out again, alone in the lost city and he hates the panicking notes in his own voice. His heart is contracting and pounding hard in his chest…

 “Marty!”

…and skips a bit when he hears a familiar voice, “I’m here!”

Marty rushes to this voice, slows down a little remembering that he actually needs to breathe when he sees Rust, hurrying back to him from the opposite end of the street.

 “Where the fuck have you been? I thought you wasn’t gonna come back at all..,” Marty complains when they finally meet.

Rust looks around stealthily as if someone can hear them, a smile playing on his lips.

“Look what I found.”

He opens his jacket and from the inside pocket a tiny black kitten stares back at Marty, curious. A pair of huge green eyes narrows from the bright light of the day and the kitten lets out a frightened “mew”, trying to hide back into the pocket.  

 “How did he even manage to survive?” Marty wonders and he’s smiling too when Rust carefully gets the kitten out of his pocket. “You must be hungry, poor little fella?”

 “Wanna hold him?” Rust’s voice is so soft that Marty looks up at him and their eyes lock. Marty doesn’t know what he’s doing when he leans in and kisses Rust on the cheek, his lips linger there for a few moments. He steps back only when the kitten starts to scratch him painfully. They don’t talk about what’s happened till the evening.

“Do you think he’s gonna be alright?” Marty gently pats the kitten curled up into a ball next to a bowl. He ate up all the canned fish from it and now purrs approvingly under Marty’s touch.

This night they stay in a house on the very edge of the city. Last district to check and Marty still has no idea what exactly they’re looking for.

Some loner type dude must have lived in this damn house because there are almost no furniture in it, bare walls and a mattress in place of a bed. Fortunately they found a sleeping bag upstairs in the cellar and Marty put it on the second floor (wondering if an idea ever occurred to the owner of the house that he actually had one). 

Rust is seated on the mattress reading one of the books he took out from the whole raw of them piling up by the wall. Looks like the books were the most important aspect of the owner’s life. And here Rust is in his element.

“Did you have a family?” Marty asks him thoughtfully.

Rust tears his eyes away from the book and gazes at Marty for a long moment as if choosing his answer carefully.  

“Yes. A wife and a daughter.”

“When was the last time you saw them?”

“Before it all happened. And you?”

“Last time I saw my daughters, Audrey and Macie, about two years ago. Audrey…she…she brought home that home task from school. Teacher asked them to draw a thing they suppose are the most beautiful. Can you imagine? Maggie spent half the night with her trying to come up with something”.

“What’d she draw?”

 “Some flower I suppose. All that usual stuff girls draw.”

“Yeah. Girls usually do.”

“Audrey remembered, you know, she had a chance to catch a time when there were lots of flowers in everyone’s garden. All sorts of them. And Macie was too little to remember.”

Marty sits on the table, never noticing how he slides off into his own distant memory, surprised to discover how vivid and colorful it still remains and how he wants to talk about it.

“Come over here,” Rust calls him and Marty steps away from the table and climbs on the mattress, confident that he’s about to hear one more story about Rust’s father but Rust only looks at him in silence, blinking in the soft evening light.

“I always wanted to be a painter, you know. If I was asked to draw a thing most beautiful I’d probably go with your eyes.”

“My eyes??” Marty ‘s suddenly aware that he’s blushing in the dark. “What’s so special about them??”

But his heart swells when Rust is leaning to him until their lips meet and time halts.

“Can I stay here with you tonight?” Marty asks breaking the kiss. “Don’t wanna sleep in the damn bag.”

It’s dark already and first sound of nightlife awaking starts to crawl up their window together with chilling cold. Marty and Rust roll the blanket up and hide under it.

“I fucking hate being cold,” Rust whispers, his face inches from Marty’s and Marty can’t think about sleep. He thinks he’s already dreaming.

“Can I help you with that?” he asks, hoping secretly that Rust might get the hint in his question. Rust takes his hand then and places it to his chest where Marty senses a steady beating of the heart under his palm, hot life, there, where Rust keeps the whole world.

He slides his hand over the perfectly formed muscles of his chest, guides his fingertips across the prominent ribs and over his stomach. Rust lets out a sigh and turns into his touch.

Then Marty dares to go even further. His curious fingers find the fly on Rust’s jeans hesitating for a second until Rust’s hand covers his own again, guides him further south where Marty curls his fingers around the line of his cock. Rust nods in approval pressing his nose against Marty’s shoulder and enfolds Marty’s hand with his thighs, bucking up into his palm greedily. Marty catches his lips with his getting hard all the way at once when he feels how hot and hard Rust is in his hand. He opens his mouth up with his tongue and probes it in, catching every moan. He wants to make him feel good. He fondles him, squeezes him lightly breaking away from Rust’s lips flushed red and meets his eyes, speeding up his rhyme. Rust arches his back over the sheets, his mouth open wide while his eyes are locked on Marty, a dreamy blue shining from under the long lashes.

“Oh I think this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Marty whispers into his ear. “It will be even better only if you come for me…right now.”

Rust loses it after those words, shuts his eyes tightly and comes apart with a long strangled moan. “Oh Jesus”, he breathes out as his back lowers down on the sheets again, muscles in his stomach still twitching slightly.

“You wanna to…? How can I…,” he tries to say reaching out but Marty stops him.

“It was a long fucking day. Let’s sleep.”

They fall asleep and in the middle of the night Rust scoots closer to Marty, embracing him from behind. They lie like that for a while listening to each other. Marty says nothing, only smiles, feeling warmth radiate from Rust.

“Are you asleep?” Rust asks in a whisper.

The kitten sleeps at their feet, never managing to guess which ones belong to Rust and which ones to Marty. Creatures unknown to this world are clawing at the empty walls outside.

“No.”

“I wanna show you something, okay?” Rust asks and Marty turns to him so that they’re face to face, catches a kiss and nods. He tries to snatch another one and Rust lets him before pushing him away gently.

“Close your eyes.”

Marty closes his eyes obediently feeling Rust move closer to him, holding him tightly and then the mattress is suddenly sliding up together with them against all the gravity laws. The room is swaying at the edges.

“What’s happening?” Marty asks and opens his eyes. A cool breeze caresses his face bringing the smell of lavender and hundreds of other unknown flowers. From purple skies a huge crimson sun is staring at him.

“What the…where are we???” Marty jumps to his feet, looks around. He can hear birds chirping in different tunes, he can see a vast lake shining in the light of the sun in the distance.

“Just take it easy. Relax. This is the place where I spent the last few years,” Rust tries to explain. He’s changed, stands before Marty all dressed up in a suit and a tie. Marty’s wearing a suit too now, only his hat somehow managed to travel here as well and looks kind of stupid on his head.

“How did we get in here?”

“That’s not the most important question, Marty. You’re the first to come here with me.”

In the distance Marty sees a forest of blooming trees, two of them stand out separately on the endless lavender field.

“You got your breath now? Great. Let’s go. This way,” Rust gestures for him to follow and they walk along the treaded path.  

“The sun is setting already, not the best time to come here. We must hurry. Keep up.”

Marty is close on his heels, hundreds of question are swirling on his tongue and he can’t choose which one to ask first.

“So that is the “bad thing” you were talking about recently?”

“In a way, yeah…”

“But why won’t you stay here? Forever?”

“I can’t stay because it’s not safe here after sunset. This place…it draws you in. You see there, by the lake, there are lots of folks who can travel between worlds.  They gather on the shore.  Just sit there and gaze at the horizon, like fools. Dreaming. I don’t wanna become one of them. You can spend a day here, or two, several months maybe, because time flaws differently here. But if you stay too long, this place gonna eat you up.”

“But you come back here often?”

“You’ll see why. That thing I’m looking for in the city, it belongs here. Once I brought it into the real world and it got lost. I need to find it at any cost and bring it back …”

A strange sound similar to laughter breaks out from the direction of the blooming forest and Marty wonders whether it can be an echo of the reality left behind. 

“That’s the place. That’s the main reason I still come back.”

They’re standing in the middle of the lavender field by the small swell on the ground with a wooden cross stuck into it. On a horizontal plank bound up with a pink ribbon a faded name written in black paint can still be seen  - “ _Sofia”._

“Sofia. Who’s that?” Marty asks.

“My daughter. She passed when she was only three. It was my fault…,” Rust’s voice fails him.

Marty walks up to him and put his hands on his shoulders, squeezing gently.

“Oh I’m so sorry, Rust.”

Rust nods.

They stand like that for a while, in silence until a blood curdling yell comes from the lake and the sun rolls up behind the horizon. A yellow moon is already rising up from the opposite side.

“We should get going,” Rust bends down and adjusts the pink ribbon on the cross, then he takes Marty’s hand and leads him away. The world is spinning again and soon they’re back on the mattress, as if they never left in the first place. The kitten is sleeping peacefully and the streets are alive with death. 

“Rust, this is too much for me, man…,”Marty covers his face with his hands feeling a little dizzy from all the information and the crazy spinning of the worlds. He can still smell lavender. “ Too much for one night. Fuck! I would’ve never…never supposed that such thing is possible!”

“It is possible.”

“Am I really the first one you showed all this?”

“I tried to bring Claire there too, but it didn’t work out. I’m glad it did with you. Now I know for sure I ain’t crazy.  Neither was my father.”

“Did you create all of this yourself?”

“Partly, I did. But anyone who gets there sees it differently. You saw my version of it.”

 

***

In the morning Marty wakes up on the empty mattress after a vivid dream that he’s back home, back where his home used to be. With a bit of difficulty he gets up to his feet, looks through the window, just to check, in case he’ll see some changes outside. But it’s still the same thick grey fog. He recalls the crimson sun and endless lavender fields and sighs longingly.

There’s a tiny round mirror on the wall in this room and Marty tries to make out his reflection in it. He’s got a week’s stubble on his chin, his hair all mussed up and his eyes are shining wildly from under his ever frowning brows. Such a pretty sight, he thinks. He grimaces and tries to smooth his hair down with his hand, suddenly concerned about his looks.

“Rust have you seen my hat??” he asks, peeking under the mattress. The only place where it could possibly disappear.

“No,” he hears from the next room .

Instead of his hat Marty pulls a tie from under the mattress and scratches his head in wonder.

“Think I might’ve forgotten it in your “Narnia””.

“It’s not a “Narnia”,” Rust observes, walking into the room. He leans against the scuffed doorframe and watches Marty’s attempts to find his stupid hat with some kind of amusement sparking in the corners of his eyes. “It must’ve really liked your hat.”

“Well, then I guess it has no fucking sense of style because this goddamn tie is irrelevant. And where’s the cat?”

“I took him there in the morning. It’s no good place for him in this city anyway. As for us, we’ve got one more place to check and then we can turn back”.

Marty chews at his lower lip lost in thought for a moment. Then he walks up to Rust and kisses him off-handedly.

“You ain’t gonna run off to that “Narnia” place, are you?

 “Ain’t  gonna run off to nowhere,” Rust says allowing Marty to kiss him on the neck. “And I got you some breakfast while you were sleeping.”

“Maybe we could stay here today, huh?” Marty presses himself against Rust, wishing he snatched the opportunity the other night. “This last house can wait.”

Rust shakes his head and half-heartedly breaks away from Marty’s persistent embrace.

Half an hour later they get out on the streets and at once they feel that something’s wrong. Rust looks at Marty.

“You sense it too now?”

Marty nods. He doesn’t know what Rust is talking about when he says “you sense _it_ too” but he can say for sure that a groundless fear’s gripped him tightly. Whatever it is, “it” noticed them, “it” knows. And there’s no way they can hide. It is far more tremendous and frightful than those creatures clawing at walls at night, much more vast and incomprehensible. Marty senses it moving between the buildings, over the rooftops; through the fog…its sordid slippery shadow slithers towards them…. 

Without saying one more word they hurry to the car.

“Tell me the way,” Marty turns the keys and the truck starts, they pass first house by, the next one, and behind the third, in the shadow Marty sees one creature – grayish, angular and tall, watching them with crazed tunnels which supposed to be its eyes.

“Holy shit!” Marty hears from the passenger seat and he knows at once that Rust’s seen it too. They turn around the corner and there are three of those things staring at them from behind the next house, getting closer to the road, trapping the truck in a circle.

“Thought them fuckers don’t come out in the light”.

“That bigger thing must’ve spooked them ,” Rust says, constantly checking the swarm of creatures in rearview mirror. “They’re not attacking yet, just waiting for something”.

“Rust. Maybe we should get the fuck out of here…?” Marty panics.

“Here!” Marty slams the breaks by the three-storied house. Rust takes out the AK, hands another one one to Marty. They hurry through the door and up the stairs where Rust tells Marty to stay on guard by the staircase.

“They attack, you don’t wait for me,” Rust says.

“Fuck you! Like hell I won’t!” Marty protests but Rust already disappeared behind the door.

No more than a minute later Marty hears a noise in the cellar. Those things must’ve gotten in through the destroyed roof. Marty stays put by the staircase but he’s scared out of wits and is afraid to move. He can hear them clawing their way down the stairs. He swallows hard and switches the safety on his gun off just in time when Rust shows back up.

“Jesus fucking  Christ, I thought you won’t make it out alive!” he shouts in a whisper, his heart is about to rip his ribcage apart. He has time to notice that Rust is wearing black leather jacket now and holding some kind of a ledger before Rust grips his upper arm and leads him downstairs.

But the entrance is already blocked with the army of those things. Marty takes aim and shoots one. When it falls dead to the ground something clicks the rest of them off, they storm in and up the staircase in a raging determination to catch the prey. Marty and Rust are pinched in between two fires.   

“We’re fucked,” Marty draws a conclusion to his life.

But it’s Rust who wouldn’t let him go, “Close your eyes and follow me”.

Marty does so and imagines a huge crimson circle of a sun and the endless lavender field. Next second he breathes in the smell of flowers and a light breeze is caressing his face. They’re in Rust’s world again.

“Jesus…it was close…,” Marty falls to his knees, breathing heavily. He’s in a suit again. Rust sits down on the grass beside him.

“Have you found what you were looking for?” Marty asks gasping huge gulps of fresh air.

“This I did,” Rust points at the ledger and the black jacket.

Marty gets back up on his feet and walks around Rust.  

“Wait a second, are you trying to tell me that we risked our lives and roamed the city for a weak for a fucking jacket and a ledger??”

“You don’t get it Marty. These things are part of me that must remain here.”

“What…Why?”

“They are memories, okay? Memories I wanted to forget. But everything went wrong. Those things got in your city and…part of my world got in there together with them”.  

For a minute Marty tries to make sense out of everything Rust’s just said.

“You mean…you mean…it all happened because of you??”

Rust jumps to his feet and takes a few steps back sensing a new threat. This time it’s a pissed off Marty Hart.

 “I didn’t wanna to…Marty, I didn’t wanna do no harm to anyone,” he tries to explain raising his hands in a protective gesture. “I swear, there was nothing I could do. I tried to distract _it_ with my blood and it worked for a while but then, with you…I stopped and this fucking thing came back….but it’s here now. It’s here and no one’s gonna suffer again, no one but me…”

“What thing?”

“My guilt. About her death. You sensed it back there too and you know how hopeless it is. I showed you. Come on Marty, let’s not ruin everything…we might still have…”

Rust shakes his head. Marty’s breathing heavily. He looks around at the vast fields, at the shining surface of the lake and blooming trees. Who would’ve thought that a single memory of a man can be so destructive!

“Get me back into the city,” he says and Rust doesn’t protest. He takes his hand and they travel back, to the world Rust destroyed.

All the creatures are gone now. Because Rust’s memory, the horrid thing in physical manifestation, is now back in the place where it should be, roaming the vast expanse of his mind.

When they find the ground Marty punches Rust in the face, hard. Rust doesn’t hit him back, only wipes the streaming blood with the sleeve of his jacket. 

“Fucking son of a bitch,” they hit the road out of the city and somewhere half-way back Marty stops the car. “I don’t see any reason as to why you’re still in my car”.

Rust opens the door then and leaves. For some time Marty watches his back as he’s slowly making his way up the street until the fog consumes him. Marty feels his heart clench at this sight and he tries to swallow a lump in his throat as he hits the gas and drives away in the opposite direction.

 

***

Steve greets him with a smile full of crooked teeth when Marty is back in his city.

“Looks like you’ve lost a couple of pounds, man! Look at ya, skinny as a rail! How’s your family?”

It occurs to Marty that Steve’s voice of concern is so far away, he might as well be speaking to him from another dimension.

“They’re fine,” he mutters in response.  

His face is almost unrecognizable behind the thick stubble; he never found his hat and is wearing this absurd tie loose on his neck for some purpose unknown even to himself.

His life resumes its usual course for the next four months. Except now Marty drinks only from his own flask because in every mirror surface he sees an echo of a horrid thing that turned its gaze on him back in the destroyed city. It always waits for Marty somewhere on the edges of reality, always follows him.

And every day he comes back to his house he feels that sharp longing, an irresistible desire to open the wardrobe and take out the tie, just to look at it. Sometimes he manages to resist the temptation but for most part he can’t and then he sits in his chair and unrolls the tie on his knees watching the expensive material shine in a retrospect of velvet memories under the light of a single bulb hanging from the ceiling.

Marty knows why he doesn’t have a family anymore. Because some son of a bitch doesn’t know how to take control of his own mind. And still Marty misses that son of a bitch. He thinks about him every day, thinks about the night they spent together somewhere on the city’s perimeter, on the mattress and he he’s yearning for the world he shown him.

One of the evenings like that Marty can’t take it anymore. He closes his eyes and imagines the crimson sun and the lavender fields. His desire to be there once more is so strong that his world starts to sway and dissolve on the edges until he finds himself standing in the middle of the field, wind blowing in his face, and five meters away from him a wooden cross arises with half-faded inscription made in simple black paint that still reads _“Sofia”._ Rust is sitting by the cross on a stone. He notices Marty and slowly rises to his feet.

“How did you get in here?” Rust asks him carefully.

But Marty has no fucking clue. He’s holding the tie in his hand and Rust’s wearing his old cowboy hat, the one he lost four month ago.

“Tell me are you for real or have I had too much beer today?” Marty asks in confusion.

“And are _you_?” Rust asks.

Marty looks around and notes that the scenery has changed.

“You’ve changed the place a little?”

“No. I suppose it’s all _your_ doing”.

The lavender fields end and there’s a road stretching endlessly ahead towards the horizon, disappearing in a thick green forest. The sun seems to be different too, it’s no longer crimson but yellow now, more like the regular sun in real world, maybe not that bright and less painful to look at.  The lake is still shining in the distance, catching flecks of sunlight, but it’s far wider now, like the whole ocean.

“Not bad,” Marty nods approvingly. “What else is new around here?”

“You tell me,” Rust says, squinting at the sun.

“Alright, let’s go then.”

They go down the hill, to the road, walk to the edge of the forest and in the shade under the trees Marty spots his truck.

“Well I’ll be damned,” he chuckles.

“What you’re gonna do?” Rust asks him. The sun is tangled in his hair and Marty bets he’s never been more beautiful that he is now.

“Going for a drive of course. And you…you wanna go with me?”

Rust gives him a tiny crooked smile and nods.

They pass several miles, driving deeper into the forest in the direction of the ocean-lake, down the hill where the road begins to narrow until it ends by the shore which is smothered with green, surrounded by the garden of trees.

From the thick foliage a small cabin is standing out. The air here is filled with sweet smell of flowers, birds chirping and soft palpitation of leaves. Marty doesn’t remember the last time he saw anything quite like this. He steps out of the car and fresh droplets of water from the lake kiss his face in a soft welcome to stay, brought here by the wind together with the smell of lilac and cherry blossom.

“Maybe we should stay here for a couple of days? What do you think?” he asks Rust. “No one’s gonna be looking for me.”

“Time’s different here,” Rust says, getting out of the car after Marty. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

“You have anything at all you need to bring here?”

“I’ve got all I need.”

Marty nods. He noticed before that now Rust never parts with his leather jacket and a ledger.

They go inside the cabin that contains only two rooms, a tiny bedroom and a narrow hallway. They smell fresh wood as if the house was newly build and waited here just for two of them.

“Think I’ve done pretty good job renovating your mind?”

“I guess so,” Rust says. “What are we...”

But before he can finish the sentence Marty pushes him against the wall and kisses him.

“I missed you so much,” he breathes into Rust’s lips, kissing him deeply. Rust’s arms slide over his shoulders and his back, lock around his neck. Marty lifts up Rust’s shirt, trailing kisses along the line of his neck, his palms find their way up his chest under the soft fabric of his wife beater. Rust bites his lower lip and moans when Marty slightly presses his fingers on his nipples while suckingmarks on the skin in the crook between his neck and a shoulder.

“You like it?” he asks and when Rust nods he bends down and takes one into his mouth, circling it with his tongue, remembering to pay attention to the other with his fingers.

“Marty…Marty…,” Rust repeats like a prayer, gasping the air with his mouth, he throws his head back and breathes out noisily. Marty can’t wait any longer, he gets down on his knees and unbuckles the belt on Rust’s jeans, unzips his fly feeling the line of his cock press against the thin fabric, feeling how hard  his own is already.

“No, Marty…,” Rust attempts to stop him when he realizes what he’s about to do. “Marty, it’s too much, I won’t…ahhh-“

Marty takes him all the way into his mouth before he can protest, slides his tongue along the underside of his cock on the way back. Rust loses his self-control, closes his eyes tightly breathing in through the nose, breathing out through his mouth in an effort to last a little longer but when he looks down, when Marty starts to speed up he only bends inward helplessly, pushes into the heat of Marty’s mouth and lets the waves of orgasm take over his body.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he says. His fingers tangling in Marty’s hair while Marty takes in everything he can offer up to the very last drop. Then he rises to his feet and meets Rust with a kiss, letting him taste himself on his tongue.

“It’s okay,” he says. “You’ve got a lovely taste…”

They move onto the bed, forgetting about anything else for a while. Rust gets undressed for Marty, lays down on the sheets and Marty takes a bottle of lube from the bedside drawer.

“You sure didn’t come unprepared, Marty,” Rust says when Marty bends over him and their lips meet once more. Marty remembers to catch Rust’s eyes, to see how he’s frowning a little when his cold fingers come in contact with his heated sensitive body, the way his pupils dilate when they probe inside, one after another.

“Don’t stop now, baby.”

Rust moans loudly, his back arching as he’s trying to give Marty a better access. Yes, this is the most precious and important thing they’ve got now – this world they created for each other despite the end of the real one. Marty penetrates him deeper, watching him getting lost in pleasure. It seems that every time he can pull him over the edge even faster because Rust is no longer reluctant to let him. He trusts him enough. Marty enjoys the little desperate noises he makes.  

 “So easy to please,” he says, crawling over his body, pressing Rust into the sheets with his weigh. He enters him slowly, languidly thrusting into him as he kisses his neck and sucks on his collarbone. Rust turns his face into the pillow giving him the line of his neck to assault as he pleases.

 “Fuck, you know the ways Marty…,” he breathes heavily again as the heat between them coils once more, getting tighter. Marty hides his face in the crook of Rust’s  neck , shuts his eyes tightly and comes till he sees white, Rust follows his suit shortly as another orgasm shakes his body, more violent than before.

The night is unusually peaceful and warm, free of creatures clawing their way outside. Marty and Rust lay awake for a long time, listening to this silence and to each other’s existence until Marty falls asleep in Rust’s arms.

 

***

He wakes up from something wet touching his cheek . He opens his eyes and it’s their black kitten eyeing him curiously in the morning light.

 “Hey, buddy, long time no see!” Marty says reaching out to scratch behind his ear gently, “He gave you a name yet?” The kitten purrs with content and pokes his wet nose into Marty’s palm. He settles by Marty’s side and stays there a while until Rust enters the room. Then he jumps off the bed and runs happily towards him with his tail quivering.

 “Look at that traitor,” Marty scorns jokingly. Rust picks the kitten up into his arms. He wears a wife beater and blue jeans (never bothering to buckle the belt or to lace his boots).

 “Marty, you’ve got a whole collection of fishing rods here, you knew that?”

“Really?”

 “You never told me you take interest in fishing,” Rust says petting the kitten lightly. He stands with his shoulders hunched forward a little, his body curving gracefully in the morning sunlight.

 “Didn’t have an opportunity I guess. But yeah, I do actually.”

“I’ve made you some breakfast. Wanted to bring it here but then I thought it’s better to leave it in the kitchen where this bastard won’t get to it. There’s even that favorite coffee of yours.”

 “Damn ain’t that a paradise. Don’t tell me your Camels are here as well?”

Rust smiles cunningly and pulls a pack of cigarettes from his jeans pocket.

 “You see, I’ve taken care about you too.”

 “You’re always taking care about me.”

Suddenly Marty gets very serious in the face.

 “Rust, come here, will you?”

Rust lets the kitten go and gets on the bed on top of Marty, straddling his legs.

 “You have beautiful eyes,” he says and Marty chuckles at first but then smiles ingeniously, caressing Rust’s cheek. He brushes the unruly curl away from his forehead.

 “Are you in love with me or something?” he jokes.

 “What if I am,” Rust leans in and leaves a chaste kiss on his lips. “You wanted to ask me a question?”

Marty thinks about where to start.

 “Last day we were in the city…that…thing….whatever it was…a memory. How do you live with it every day? I saw it once, didn’t even look straight into it but I still can’t get rid of this…horrible fear. Do you feel it too? All the time?”

 “I don’t know. I suppose I got used to leaving with it ever since I was a child. You see it’s not only about the memory…it’s also a part of me. The part that I was born with. Back in Alaska my Dad taught me how to control it, that thing inside of me. He used to tell me that it can’t be killed but it can be subdued if you give it just a little taste of blood, offer a sacrifice.”

“Jesus…”

 “So many worlds out there, Marty, they extend so much farther than this one. I could go anywhere. Discover all the sacramental truths of the universe…but once you start this journey, there’s no coming back. You can go so far…where there’s nothing left but fear and darkness…And when the boundaries between the worlds are so thin, sometimes…it’s so easy to slip into this darkness…”

Marty sits up a little and caresses his thighs reassuringly.

 “Well no more darkness, okay?”

Rust nods and kisses him, looks at him from under those long lashes and Marty feels the light warming up his heart. Suddenly Rust starts taking his wife beater off.

 “Oh. You want more?” Marty asks in surprise, touching the outline of a mysterious tattoo on Rust’s chest with the tips of his fingers. This secret of Rust he is yet to unravel. Probably, no time in the world can be enough to solve all his mysteries, but who says about time, Marty wants to spend an eternity with him…

 “Don’t tell me you won’t get it up.”

 “Pss, nonsense! It got up as soon as you crossed thisthreshold, baby, and now there ain’t turning back.”

Rust laughs at this commentary and on this day the moon melts into the sun. The sun burns it with its rays and the moon spills milky white across the dark line of the sky spangled with stars.

They spent six days in this little paradise. Marty teaches Rust the right way to make a coffee and Rust tells Marty about the miracles he happened to witness here in his world, by the shore. About people who come to the lake to learn the greatest truths, to heal their wounds, about those dare devils who venture to step into the water and swim across the lake towards the opposite shore. They fishtogether and Marty tells him about all types of bait, they swim in the lake and make love, spend days and nights in bed and Marty tells Rust he’s never been so happy. Then one day they go looking for the missing kitten just to find out that he ate almost all the fish they caught leaving them without dinner. The sun rises and sets again, replaced by the yellow moon and six days later Rust tells Marty that it is time to go.

And then Marty takes Rust by the hand and leads him back to reality, his reality. They spend seventeen long years together until one day the south border is opened again and is suitable to live in. They get in the truck and drive all the way south, where they first met and went through so much together.

 “Hey, pull over for a second,” Rust tells him in the evening somewhere between the third and the fourth rusty traffic light.

On the spot where Marty found him seventeen years ago, where his blood spilled over the asphalt nonexistent by now, a cactus broke through. It reaches its spines towards the sun and a huge bud is already forming there, ready to burst towards the night.

Rust and Marty get out of the car to look at it closer.

 “I’ll be damned, I think it’s the first flower I see here since god knows when”, Marty marvels. “What you think, Rust, maybe, sometime soon this world can be just like yours? Or even better?”

 “There’s still hope,” Rust says.

Marty looks in his eyes, deep blue encircled with threads of wrinkles now, a mirror surface that is no longer possessed by nightmares or horrid memories of the past and sees the same reflection of hundreds of worlds that he once saw back in the first morning of their acquaintance.  He wants to travel all those worlds with Rust, to visit every universe and make sure that two souls will always find the way to each other. The sun rolls behind the horizon triumphantly and their long shadows become one. Maybe there are no lavender fields and endless shining lakes sprinkled with sunlight in Marty’s world but Rust is here and that is all he could ever dream about.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Originally there were two versions of the ending: the happy one and the tragic one. But I guessed it would be better to go with the happy end. Didn't want to make none of you sad :)


End file.
